Editorial: Disclosure, the N.Y. way

Updated 6:48 am, Friday, July 5, 2013

The state commission on ethics gives an exemption to an abortion rights group.

THE QUESTION:

What other groups will want them as well?

Our Constitution protects a woman's right to choose whether or not to have an abortion, a decision that should remain a private matter between her and her doctor. But somehow, in the minds of the members of the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics, that notion of privacy has been contorted into an inexcusable exemption from campaign disclosure laws for an abortion rights group.

Public disclosure is supposed to mean something, especially in a state where big money so often prevails and where the state Senate won't pass tough campaign finance laws. An effective law toward that end, or so we had hoped, was enacted in 2011, requiring disclosure of large donors to the many special-interest groups that wield influence on state government.

Now that law appears on its way to being rendered moot. Really, how can the state say it requires disclosure when it has just given NARAL Pro Choice NY a pass?

Last week's ruling by JCOPE — after (what else?) a closed-door session — is an open invitation to other special interests to try to squirm out of the law's grasp. NARAL contends that letting the public know who its high-rolling contributors are — that is, anyone who gives more than $5,000 — could put them in danger.

We're well aware of how contentious and even violent abortion politics can be. Anti-abortion lunatics have killed abortion providers; their protection is thus crucial. But does the simple listing of a political contribution present the same threat to personal safety that abortion doctors must endure?

It's quite a stretch. Pardon any New Yorkers, anti-abortion or pro-choice, who detect political favoritism in JCOPE's shortsighted ruling.

Who else might try to be spared from public disclosure requirements on personal safety grounds? Imagine the argument that gun control advocates, say, might make about the political opposition they face.

The public needs to know where the money comes from in high-profile debates — especially where there's great debate, such as on abortion, guns, hydrofracking, gay rights, school choice, or anything suggestive of racial preferences.

The state Catholic Conference is quite right to take such vehement exception to how the law has been undermined. NARAL's assertion that this is a balance between transparency and safety is self-serving at best.

Questions about where NARAL is getting its money will persist as it prepares to make abortion rights a key issue in next year's statewide elections. The vital issue of making the right to an abortion a matter of public health rather than penal law shouldn't be obscured by objections over who's financing the cause.

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There's another setback for disclosure to lament. A 2011 law is taking effect that makes public the outside incomes and other personal financial information of some public officials. Emphasis on some

A law that in time might be most noteworthy for what it reveals about the law practices of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Republican Senate leader Dean Skelos is full of loopholes.

Officials at interstate entities such as the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey won't be affected. Nor will members of boards of local authorities such as Industrial Development Agencies and Local Development Corporations. Those are the outfits that can issue lucrative tax breaks to businesses. The public needs to know who is making those decisions and what conflicts they might be hiding.